The History of Them
by FunWhileItLasted
Summary: If Her first will was that Her children were always given a choice to live, then Her second will would be that Her children were always given the chance to love. Elf!LenxHuman!Rin. An experimental writing piece.
1. Chapter 1

This is my experiment, don't expect too much but also anticipate it and please, please give your thoughts. I'm at a point where I don't know how I want my writing to evolve, so I'm toying with new styles and I'm in need of some feedback. This is the latest of my endeavors. My goal? To give you, to the best of my ability, a story with a daily update.

Enjoy~

* * *

 _To the preface of this journal, I would like to first clarify the differences between man and elf. Elves have their magic and their longevity, and of course we humans have our affinity to change and our unquenchable curiosity._

 _But beyond that, there's not much else. If I were to list our similarities, it would go on endlessly. We share more than just anatomy and sentience with the blessed children—both races have an unparalleled stubbornness to live, prosper and, most importantly, love._

 _When two powers clash, they will never simply mold together. They will collide and butt heads, trying to force the other to conform to their ways. This is the foundation by which the growing hatred between our races have thrived upon, and if this humble journal could do anything to awaken the eyes of those blinded by this pointless rivalry, then all the better._

~ **The Introduction of the historic journal "The History of Her Children" by I.A. Phonot**

* * *

It was now; her life's splitting branch. Whereas others usually had weeks to choose their destiny, she had about three—now two—seconds to decide.

In the fading light, her eyes darted from left to right, taking in split the paths and calculating rapidly the worn leaves, the filtered light, the trees, the dirt, the air of each way. Stuck in the middle of the fork, a giant wooden post indicated the village at the right, but whatever had been the sign for the left was ripped off the top.

She could not explain it, but she knew deep in her body that this was the choice that would lead the rest of her life. This was her moment foretold.

Thus, she charged right through the middle, vaulting past the sign and into the dense forest behind it.

Blindly, her fingers and hands swatted uselessly at dense branches that scored across her face. Behind her, the men had bellowed commands to each other in deep, resonating voices that seemed to fall apart just before they reached her ears. If she stopped, begged and cried, maybe they would pity her, but the fire in their hands and their abhorrent screams hummed within her fearful heart, forcing her to keep going. She jumped, hoping that she might be at a cliff so to end the pain, but she landed cleanly on solid ground, and so ran off again.

She was not guilty, yet her heart was screaming like a convicted criminal. She was not strong, but her lungs took in air with such clarity that it felt as if she could run forever. She was not brave, but her body plunged into the underbrush unwaveringly.

The shouts behind her were fading. They were tired men after all, exhausted men that been breathing in smoke and terror for three days and nights. She whipped her head back, crashing and clinging to a tree, gripping its bark as if it was her thread out of hell. Her knees knocked together, and her legs nearly gave way to the momentum of her racing mind. The earth felt like it was rocking, as if Mother Earth was also condemning her, shifting the ground under her feet as if it were waves on a stormy sea.

She clung to the tree until she could no longer feel her arms, her eyes squeezed closed and her cheek pressed hard against damp wood. Her blood was roaring, pounding in anarchy as it attempted to oxygenate her aching muscles, but beyond that, her ears strained for the sound of her hunters. She listened, and held her breath, digging into the tree with her nails, and opened her eyes blearily as the torches in the distance began to flicker away, one-by-one. She stayed, silent and still, until there was no more than a whisper in the trees and finally, exhaled, her own pulse thudding rapidly to fill the quiet space.

And, finally, when she released her grip on the tree, she crumpled at its roots, withering down into a sobbing heap where she lay until she fell asleep.

* * *

He did not expect to die until much later.

It was shameful, absolutely _shameful_ , that he, the young General of his race, would be stopped by nothing more than a mere sorcerer.

He watched as the man's body fell to the ground, but it made no difference. They had exchanged killing blows, and on himself, he felt the blood seeping through his tunic and onto the grass. He swallowed, and the sharp pain racing through his chest and back told him the damage that had been done. Sloppily, he began to walk away from the clearing, falling against the trees that surrounded him, but fought to move nonetheless.

He was incredible thirsty, and Damn him if he was going to die with a parched throat on top of this.

He fell against the bank, hissing madly as he rolled over so that he was staring at the dappled sunlight that poured in from above. The creek water rushed through his hair, and he reached back with his hand to dip his pale fingers in its gentle flow. He kissed the droplets from his palm, not even managing the energy to turn over and take a sip.

He began laughing, then, at the absurdity of it all.

 _Three hundred years._

That's all he lived for. The elders told him he would live to at least a millennia, and he's had dreams of the future, but here? Not even half way through his life, and he was dying on a water bed, literally bleeding his heart out. He laughed to the air the ridiculousness of the situation, blatantly ignoring the pain on his chest, because what did it even matter anymore?

The sun was starting to set, and he still had not yet died.

His limbs were stiffening, and his breath was thinning, but he still had both his life and his consciousness. He was aware of everything around him, his hyper-senses in strange clarity since he had not moved in hours. Around him, he heard the earth alive with insects, rodents and flora, and in the distance he listened to the birds and the animals getting ready for the night. From his heart, he sensed the presence of man dotting his forest—he felt them some move restlessly near his borders, moving dangerously inwards. In the back of his mind, the part that was still _him_ , he was disgusted by the thought of a human in his woods, and tracked their presence although he knew he could no longer chase them out.

The more the sun fell, the closer these men were getting. They seemed to be charging in, and they were getting close to the perimeter that was completely off-limits to them. He had compromised with humans long ago, and he had agreed to let them use some acres inside his woods so that they could set a road that led to their villages, but these ruffians were not going to stop for the border, apparently.

He wondered if they were coming for him. To kill him or rob him. Either way, he thought sagely, they were lucky men.

But, as soon as they hit the border, they stopped. Or the majority of them, at least, paused right at the edge of the barrier. One small presence was still barreling into the woods, and despite himself, he laughed at its stupidity.

One human planning to take on an Elven General? Suicidal.

He laughed until he choked and began hiccupping on the pain that followed, spatting blood to the side as black vision began to blot his sight. He coughed, sputtered, and finally closed his eyes, sighing gravely into the ground beside him.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for your feedback! Your reviews have helped me power through this chapter to finish it on time (boy oh boy) and so here is part 2, as promised. Ho hum. The second part was harder to write. Don't be fooled, it may be longer, but I'm not sure how I feel about this compared to part 1.

Enjoy~

* * *

 _Year 133 (A.R.) Month 2 Day 5_

 _Today was my 18_ _th_ _Birthday, so Father surprised me at the reception with a beautiful new dress from Belphegort. It has a silken bodice and satin skirt, both of navy blue, with silver embroidery, lining and ribbon. It is a gorgeous thing, and I've sketched it below. Tomorrow at the ball, I shall wear it._

 _Also, there was a man at the reception whom I've never seen before. He was tall and his eyes were the most intriguing shade of blue—watery and tinged green like the creek in Helds Woods—and something of his stature reminded me of a knight. I never caught his name, though indeed there was something awfully familiar about him._

 **~An excerpt from the diary of Duchess Meiko "The Heart's Queen" Banika Conchita**

* * *

She awoke feeling that her lungs were on fire. Her eyes jumped open, her muscles tensed and prepared to flee, but when it registered that the rustling of leaves was merely from the wind, she relaxed a fraction. Memories of the night before had settled in her body and she closed her eyes in relief.

She was safe. After three days and four nights of running, she was finally alone.

Gently, she opened her eyes and scanned her surroundings. The woods were less dense than she had initially thought—the ground was littered with leaves, but there was not much flora save the trees and occasional overgrown shrub. She smelled the pungent aroma of wet plants and let herself sink into its calming effect if not for just a second.

She had to keep moving. This was the path she chose, and she would have to keep going.

Slowly, testing her limbs, she rose, wincing at the sores and heavy aches that creaked and cracked at her limbs. In the gray light of the morning, she checked her injuries, unsurprised that her legs had taken the worst of it, though relieved that the problem was only a myriad of shallow cuts and scrapes that had already mostly stopped bleeding. Peeling herself from the tree that had given her so much support, she limped towards the west.

As she went, the sun continued to climb on her back, and patches of heat poured over her head as she walked under the occasional part in the leaves. The forest was coming back to life, and around her she heard the rustling of birds and small animals leaving their homes for the day. She growled and realized that she may have to eat something soon; she had been thriving on wayward plants and mouthfuls of water since she was chased out and her body was craving meat.

Hungrily, she watched a wild rabbit sniff amongst the leaves in the distance, but knew that she was in no condition to hunt. Regretfully, she turned away, hoping instead to find a water source so to wash and treat her wounds.

From inside her dress, she took out her little package. It was nothing more than a bundle made from a part of her ripped skirt, and it carried tiny sprigs of herbs, both for medicine and consumption. She knew almost nothing about wild shrubs and sprouts, but even she could recall the basics of their use. As she went, she took small parts from the plants she recognized, nibbling at the edge of a squashed berry to slake her dry tongue.

The sun was almost directly above her when she finally heard a ripple of water, and by the time she found the tiny creek, the afternoon had gotten strangely hot for a spring's day. In relief, she fell to her knees in the soft bank and pressed her lips to the surface, drinking straight from the source. Her stomach churned at the unfamiliar taste, but she forced it all down by gritting her teeth as she started to wash her hands, face, neck and wounds. With the dirt freed from her cuts, blood began to seep through once again but she used a common herb to at least numb the stinging. Having treated herself to the water, she cleared her throat, spitting the phlegm and thickened mucus that had built over the three days of straight running.

Then she saw him.

Not far from her, maybe about ten strides on the opposite bank, a man lay face up on the ground with blood—dried and fresh—covering his entire chest.

Her instincts told her to run. Men were bad news, and even if this one was dead, the thing that killed him probably was not. She gathered her skirt to herself, her body tensed to move, but her watchful gaze stayed on the man. Something blue caught her eye, a light that glittered and shone on the head of the body, and it was drawing her in. Slowly, she rose, now highly alert of her surroundings, and kept a lookout for any stray sound or movement but sensed nothing out of the ordinary.

So she approached.

Crossing over the creek in a few, calculated hops, she gave the fallen man a wide berth at first, circling him skeptically as she took a more careful look.

Lithe, long and elegantly formed—his stature reminded her of a smooth birch branch that her father had sanded down to be as smooth as silk. The blue glint that she had seen before was actually one of his eyes. His left eyelid was open by just a bit, but underneath she had never before seen an iris in _that_ shade of blue. It was a perfect reflection of the creek that he was laying on top on; uncanny even in the dappled sunlight that shone on its surface.

This man was not human.

His ears were long and sharp, and in his slightly open mouth, she saw the long canine teeth. It explained his beauty and grace even in his state, and it explained why no animal had yet come to take his flesh.

This was a holy child of Mother Earth, as well as the greatest enemy to mankind: an elf.

She scrambled back with a cry, an old childhood fear awakening as she envisioned the earth uprooting, the waters crashing, the air constricting-she had been bred on these stories of terror by elves. She's heard tales of massive human armies bending to the will of magic, of rampant spells laying waste to an entire village, of vengeance seeking elves kidnapping young children and locking them up in caverns; here in front of her lay one such being.

 _Monster_.

The word hissed in her mind, and her jaw set.

 _Monster_.

The word reopened a fresh wound and she bled the memory of her escape, the night that she had run away. That word that they had spat on her as she clawed her way out of their grasp.

She, too, was labeled a monster by humans. To leave now out of fear would be to act out of apprehension, and in doing so, she would become a part of what she hated the most.

Her self-dignity got the best of her. Clenching her teeth bravely, she carefully descending to the elf's side and gingerly touched the open wound. Not even flies seemed to have the heart to defile this body, and she wondered then if he really might be alive. Softly, she trailed two fingers over the skin of his neck, searching for a pulse of any kind. The skin was ice cold, but she found that his limbs had not yet the symptoms of rigor mortis. She furrowed her eyes and pressed harder with her fingers, a cold thrill running up and down her spine when she felt the slightest bit of warmth shuddering within the body.

Although she hadn't planned to actually save him, she found that now that she _knew_ he was alive, leaving him would be a grave sin. Ripping her skirt, she poured out her contained herbs and cut away at the fabric of his soiled shirt. Aside from the lethal gash across his chest, she saw that he suffered from very little else and added that to the probability of his survival. Renewed with that flimsy hope, she soaked a part of her skirt into the water and began to clean the blood away, releasing the aroma of iron. She winced, feeling the red rivulets spilling on her wrists and swallowed when she saw that each press of the cloth was squeezing out more blood from the wound.

Silently, she worked. The elf was completely unconscious and unresponsive no matter what she did, and she realized that he may have been too far gone for her to bring him back. Nonetheless, every time she checked, his thin pulse continued to beat and so, she continued to chew and mix green poultices, cutting his shirt into strips which she used to bind his chest.

In an afternoon, she had cleaned, dressed and tied his wound with a tight, albeit makeshift, bandage, and by the evening, she had managed to forage around for edible grasses and roots. As the night fell, she nibbled on a bitter stalk, eyeing her patient that she had moved to drier land. He seemed more at peace, and at least now his breathing was noticeable; his chest rising and falling lightly with each shaky breath.

Content with this, she rested her back on a tree, smiling as she watched him live.

If anything, this was proof that she could save lives as easily as steal them, and if this was not enough to atone her sins, so be it. At least, at the very least, it meant she wasn't born just to kill.

* * *

He awoke gasping for air.

From darkness, he opened his eyes to the night, and wondered if this was the death that been planned for him. Yet, as he heaved, a dull ache followed by a sharp, alarming pain stabbed at his chest and his voice choked. He felt rough fabric digging into his sides, and as he went to touch his wound, he found it dressed snugly underneath his arms. He attempted to rise, but immediately stopped when he felt the lightening agony ripple across his ribs.

He twisted his neck to the side, his eyes adjusted to the dark forest and his ears flicked to the sound of water nearby.

The creek, he had remembered falling by it to die, though now he was quite a few ways from the bank.

Above the bubbling of the stream, he heard the crickets and nocturnal animals scuffling in the underbrush. As he continued to awaken, his energy returned, and the forest poured its warmth into him from the earth. He felt again the presence of his heart and felt the Chord building in his body.

Then, when he could no longer ignore it, he finally addressed the human that had been asleep not an arm's length away.

He turned his head to give the female the most withering look he could muster, growling threateningly, but she continued to sleep blissfully unaware. At first, apprehension made him wary, but there was little he could do at the moment as he lay wounded. He smelt his blood and skin on her hand, but he also knew the smell of sage and yarrow—the very same smell he had on his chest.

This was the one who saved him, a tattered human female.

Again, he attempted to rise, to leave the area before she came to, but the throbbing resistance of his body was so strong that he nearly threw up. Dizzy with pain, he fell back onto the ground, clenching his teeth as a groan rolled out between them. He wondered how long it would be until he could move again, but his chest felt so raw and tender that each movement sent another jolt of electricity to race up and down his bones.

He angled his face upwards and stared at the sky. He sucked in a cool breath and blew out from his teeth, letting out a shrill whistle of urgency. He was calling for help from the forest, and in a moment, he felt a bright presence beginning to move towards him, however it was many, many acres from where he lay.

No matter what, he would have to confront this human.

Good reason told him to sleep, to rest now so that he can build more energy and Chord for whatever may come, but anxiety kept him awake. He tried to calm his nerves, but every time the human stirred in her sleep, he would snap to attention, his muscles tensing nervously though there was little they could actually do. This endless cycle of paranoia lasted well past the night and into the dawn when, at last, the human woke.

He grit his teeth, already feeling tired since he had been on edge for all night, but managed to destress his muscles and closed his eyes so that he still seemed unconscious.

She yawned, and stretched, her joints crying out from their slumber. In the cool air, she sneezed and he heard her shift around her position before approaching him on all fours. She tucked her knees underneath her when she got close enough to him, and checked his vital signs. He tried not to react as her fingers brushed against his neck, and despite the screeching panic that was setting off in his body, he forced himself to be completely unmoving as she listened to his heartbeat and examined his complexion.

After a long pause, her body seemed to relax and the warmth caused by her proximity faded away. She shifted back to the tree where she continued to rustle on the ground. He listened for a long time, straining his ears to hear the tiniest of her movements, but she did not do anything particularly alarming.

Finally, he opened his eyelids just at a slit, taking in the full vision of his savior.

Underfed, bony and pale. She was going to get sick if she did not eat soon, and when she drew her ankles to his vision, he saw the yellow tinged wounds that were going to fester in another day. She was poorly dressed, and even if her skirt was in perfect shape, it really was nothing more than a cotton linen sheet that did nothing to protect her from a breeze. Hard years had dried her skin, and though he could see that she had once tried to look presentable, recent stress had made her face seem gaunt.

In all honesty, she seemed about as close to death as he probably felt.

But her eyes—those were something to behold. Their color was not fascinating, and he had seen blue eyes of man before; they were duller than any Elven iris and not nearly as lively, but it was what he saw _within_ hereyes that shocked him.

They were as clear as glass.

Her grief and anguish may as well have been bolded words for all to see, the clarity by which he could read her emotions was something that made his skin crawl. He had always had difficulty reading the eyes of man because of how cloudy they tended to be, but with this girl of clarity, it was not that she was ignorant nor naïve. From her eyes, he could see the weary experience of someone who had seen and suffered too much. It was not as if she was too pure—there was a resolute determination for the truth that she seemed to hunger so much for. Something within him said that she must be disgusted with lies and deceit, so much so that she was unconsciously forbidding herself from hiding any more.

And from her eyes, he felt his apprehension disappear.

She would be of no threat to him. She had no will to fight or to use him.

Of course, that was for now. If she eventually found out how she could use him to her advantage, that would be a completely different story, and he has seen how quickly men's ideals change when their own wellbeing is at stake. However, he would have to settle with the fact that he would be able to trust her for the time being.

He waited for her eyes to drift back down to his face, and when they did, he opened his eyes fully and forced her to lock gazes with him.


End file.
